Sleep More Comfortably Tonight: How to Clean Your Mattress

Maybe you make your bed every day as part of your normal housekeeping, change your linens every week, and flip your mattress a couple of times a year—but how often do you clean the mattress itself? Mattresses are made of cloth and as such, absorb moisture. They also attract dust and the accompanying dust mites, something you definitely don’t want to be sleeping with!

Running a vacuum over your mattress every now and then might make you feel better about the state of your mattress, but a real cleaning will give you a level of freshness above and beyond the vacuum, and it’s thankfully an easy process.

Baking soda is already a powerful tool for removing odors and stains, but it can also clean your mattress far better than a vacuum cleaner alone. You can even add essential oils to the baking soda for a relaxing scent right in your mattress, just drop a few drops of the oil into the baking soda and shake.

Here’s how you clean your mattress once your baking soda is ready:

1. Sprinkle the baking soda evenly across your mattress. Don’t be shy, you’ll need a good bit of baking soda to thoroughly cover the bed. Using a sieve or other shaker-style container will prevent clumps of powder on your mattress and spread it more evenly. 

2. Wait. It’s tempting to go right for it, but the baking soda needs time to do it’s magic absorption work. Give it at least an hour (longer is better) before you touch it. As it sits in your mattress, it will absorb any moisture in the mattress, leaving behind cleaner and much better smelling fabric.

3. Vacuum. After it’s had time to sit, take the vacuum to the mattress, vacuuming up the baking soda and every inch of your bed. As the vacuum cleaner pulls up the baking soda, it will bring with it trapped moisture, odors, dust, and dust mites.

Another great way to clean your mattress is with the cleaning and disinfecting power of steam by using a handheld steam cleaner. This method will take some time for drying, so plan on at least 5 hours from start to finish.

1. Vacuum the mattress to get up the loose dirt and dust particles before you start. 

2. Steam clean in sections. Grab your steam cleaner and start to work in small quadrants until you’ve made it to every corner of the mattress. Take your time to make sure you get the best possible cleaning.

3. Let dry. At this point, the bed will feel wet to the touch, and it’s going to need plenty of time to dry all the way through. Let it sit for 3-5 hours before putting your linens back on.

Whichever method you choose, having a clean mattress is going to make you much more comfortable when you sleep, and your maid services will be impressed with the freshness, too!